Class notes - Vygostky -
p.22
The cultural development of the child is characterized rst by the
fact that it transpires under conditions of dynamic organic changes.
Cultural development is superimposed on the processes of growth,
maturation, and the organic development of the child. It forms a
single whole with these processes. It is only through abstraction that
we can separate one set of processes from others.
The growth of the normal child into civilization usually involves
a fusion with the processes of organic maturation. Both planes of
development—the natural and the cultural—.coincide and mingle
with one another. The two lines of change interpenetrate one another
and essentially form a single line of sociobiological formation
of the child’s personality. (p. 47)
development of the child
end point - processes themselves?
23
As I have argued elsewhere (Wertsch, 1985c), Vygotsky did not pro-
§ vide a detailed denition of these two lines of development; in particular,
he was unclear about the natural line. Furthermore, his claim that
* these two lines of development operate in isolation during early phases
of ontogenesis is open to question, given recent research on infancy
(Trevarthen, 1979; Uzgiris, 1989).
role of sociology in understanding the mind
"The overall result is precisely what Bakhtin said any text must be—a
thoroughgoing dialogue with the voices of others"
Wertsch -- is he missing the way in which Vygostky's discussions of mental activities, activity of mind vs. development. Human activity - end point?
progress? vs. losing ground?
Child development (Vygotsky)vs. activity of mind - shift toward Leontev - higher mental functions - less necessity for dialectic
so, Wertsch is not seeing how Vygotsky is where he is based on where he came from (though he discusses it)
At issue -elementary - primitive (pre great divide - scribner and cole blow this apart).
My notes
2
discusses problem of psychology as it pertains to social issue
3
move away from individual to the social (Dewey)
recent research points to the way psychology is entrenched in looking at the "individual organism
cuts off psychology dialogue into other disciplines
4
frame research to connect disciplines
new units of analysis
5
Russian scholars - practical application extending across disciplinary boundaries
7/8
looks at assumptions - psychology and sociology
cultural psychology
what "naming" the units means!
8
action
"Behaviorist and neobehaviorist theories remain
grounded in assumptions similar to Locke’s claims that human knowledge
emerges through the impact of the environment, while contemporary
theorists such as Noam Chomsky (1966) pursue an avowedly
Cartesian line of reasoning. This latter perspective views the human
mind largely in terms of universal, innate categories and structures,
and the environment primarily in terms of how it provides material
for testing innately given hypotheses and inuencing developmental
processes."
9
A useful overview can be found in Iurgen
Habermas’s (I984) account of sociological approaches. Habermas has
generated a set ofcategories of action that are based on the relationship
between the actor and the environment. His account of the types of
environment (or “worlds”) that are relevant to such an exercise derives
from Karl Popper’s “three-world” theory. In Popper’s (I972) view,
“we may distinguish the following three worlds or universes: rst the
world of physical objects or physical states; secondly, the world of
states of consciousness, or mental states, or perhaps behavioral dispositions
to act; and thirdly, the world of objective contents of thought,
especially of scientic and poetic thoughts and of works of art”
(p. I06).
Habermas has arrived at a general typology
of approaches to action. In considering the relation between the actor
and the rst world of physical objects or physical states, Habermas
(I984) notes that “since Aristotle the concept of teleological action has
been at the center of the philosophical theory of action. The actor
attains an end or brings about the occurrence of a desired state by
choosing means that have promise of being successful in the given
situation and applying them in a suitable manner. The central concept
is that of a decision among alternative courses of action, with a view
to the realization of an end, guided by maxims, and based on an
interpretation of the situation” (p. 85).
10
In arguing that strategic models
are extensions of teleological models, Habermas recognizes that
“strategically acting subjects must be cognitively so equipped that for
them not only physical objects but decision-making systems can appear
in the world. They must expand their conceptual apparatus” (p. 88).
He stresses, however, that this does not entail any difference in ontological
presuppositions; instead, both types of models presuppose “one
world, namely the objective world” (p. 87).
teleolgoical action - solitary actor, objective world
dramaturgical action - Popper- states of consciousness
"An actor typically carries out
what Goffman terms “impression management” with strategic goals
in mind. In contrast to teleological action, however, where cognition,
belief, and intention play a fundamental role, in dramaturgical action
“desires and feelings have a paradigmatic status” (p. 91). Furthermore,
in contrast to judgments based on truth or efcacy, judgment in dramaturgical
action is based on concepts of sincerity or truth4lness and
authenticity."
11
normative concept of action: Popper - objective thought "As he notes, this concept of action “does
not refer to the behavior of basically solitary actors who come upon
other actors in their environment, but to members of a social group
who orient their action to common values . . . The individual actor
complies with (or violates) a norm when in a given situation the conditions
are present to which the norm has application.
Habermas - 4th type - communicative action
"Although Habermas draws extensively on accounts of all three types
of action, he has found it necessary to propose a fourth type, namely,
“communicative action.” “The concept of communicative nation refers
to the interaction of at least two subjects capable of speech and action
who establish interpersonal relations (whether by verbal or by extraverbal
means). The actors seek to reach an understanding about the action
situation and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions
by way of agreement.
12 mediation
"The most central claim I wish to pursue
is that human action typically employs “mediational means” such as
tools and language, and that these mediational means shape the action
in essential ways.
13
Voice - Bakthin - communicative nature - even when we are alone
14
we invoke certain ways of thinking/ speaking on certain occasions
Mind - how do we define cognition/ mental functioning?
15
"Much of what I shall have to say concerns these two extensions of
mind, so I shall not go into further detail now. My main reason for
raising the issue is to point out that the notion of mind embodied in
the title may not be the one some people think of when they hear the
’ term. Rather than something that is appropriately predicated only of
the individual, or even of the brain, mind is dened here in terms of its
' inherently social and mediational properties. Thus, even when mental
action is carried out by individuals in isolation, it is inherently social
in certain respects and it is almost always carried out with the help of
tools such as computers, language, or number systems.
+ distinction from what we are working on right now
ex. schema theory - sociocultural - affects - individual - isolate practices
Meyers - cognition - representation systems (textual vs. graphic)
dialectical property -- look at that moment of interaction
To use a contemporary example, let us consider the case of
an engineer who employs computer imaging to formulate options in
designing the body of an automobile and to decide among them. Does
it make sense to isolate the mental action of the individual from the
mechanism that mediates this action?
Mind to connect psychological processes to sociocultural setting
16
sociocultural
"in order to recognize the important contributions of several disciplines
and schools of thought to the study of mediated action. On the one
hand, I wish to recognize the contributions made by Vygotsky and
his colleagues (although they typically used the term sociohistorical
rather than sociocultural)."
different cultures questions
18
This focus on the sociocultural situatedness of mediated action does
not mean that there is no room for universals: I believe that universals
exist and that they will play an important role. It stems from a belief
that the universalism that has come to dominate so much of contemporary
psychology makes it extremely difcult to deal in a serious, theoretically
motivated way with human action in context.
19
3 themes Vygostsky
genetic analysis (beyond static products of development)
Vygotsky’s approach to phylogenesis rests heavily on the writings of other theorists, especially Darwin and Engels, whose inuence is particularly evident in his basic acceptance of Darwinian principles of evolution and in his overriding concern with the transition from apes to humans. The main psychological phenomenon for him in this ge- netic domain was problem solving, and he drew on Kohler’s (1921a, 1921b, 1925) ideas about tool-mediated practical action in chimpanzees
and gorillas to develop some specics about how this action com- pares with that in humans. In particular, he was interested in the claim that such problem-solving actions in apes are constrained by concrete contextual factors; apes remain “slaves of the situation,” whereas hu- mans have the representational means to overcome such limitations. Really?
tools - elementary and higher order functioning
21
a defining property of higher mental functioning, one which is unique to humans, is the fact that it is mediated by tools and by sign systems such as natural language. Vygotsky viewed tool use in apes as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the emergence of higher mental functioning. That is, a complete genetic analysis would recog- nize tool-mediated action as a precursor to subsequent forms ofmental functioning.
22
Specically, he developed the distinction between “rudimentary” and
“advanced” higher mental functioning (Wertsch, 1985c). Although he
claimed that this distinction is played out in many ways, he examined
it only in terms of the abstraction and “decontextualization” (Wertsch,
1985c) of the semiotic means that mediate communication and thinking.
says Vygostky looks at natural and cultural development (how each inform the other)
Vygostksy - higher mental functioning:
"As in other areas of his thought, Vygotsl<y’s claim that higher mental
functioning in the individual is rooted in social life was inuenced by
Marxist theory.
26
social - internalization - mental functioning- social - acting back and forth on each other
27
everything, even individual mental functions, are quasi-social
zone of proximal development
28
Mediation
The third general theme that runs throughout Vygotsky’s formulation
of a sociocultural approach is the claim that higher mental functioning
and human action in general are mediated by tools (or “technical
tools”) and signs (or “psychological tools”).
29
30
use theories (Marxist) vs. semantics
"Also underlying Vygotsky’s account ofmediation is a set of assumptions
about the nature of particular higher mental functions, more
specically, his view that thinking, voluntary attention, and logical
memory form a system of “interfunctional relations” (Wertsch,
1985c). The importance of this issue for him is manifest in the rst
sentence of Thinking and Speech, his last, and probably most important,
work. There, he noted that “the study of thought and language is
one of the areas of psychology in which a clear understanding of
interfunctional relations is particularly important” (1987, p. 1). He
devoted the entire volume, in fact, to the issue of how speaking and thinking come to be thoroughly intertwined in human life, a cogent
example of the interfunctional relationships that characterize human
consciousness.
Also, way in which we speak influences the way we think
his own background influences this (verbal as a tool/ mediational means)
31
multiculturalism
visual vs. verbal stratgies
ethnocentric biases
32
33
mediational means - how shaped? (blind man with stick)
35
keyboard
37
issues with classification
" Considered from the general perspective ofmediational means, the processes used in sorting students are similar in several ways to the QVVERTY keyboard. First, they are fundamentally shaped by the me- diational means they employ. Iust as the keyboard was determined by the capabilities of the machine, the discussion and deliberation of Eligibility and Placement committees occur within the constraints of the institutionally provided categories. Second, the power of media- tional means in organizing action is often not consciously recognized by those who use them, which contributes to the belief that cultural tools are the product of natural or necessary factors rather than of concrete sociocultural forces."
38
semiotic potentials
decontextualization
40
recontextualization
In this process of recontextualization, the interpretation of utterances
depends increasingly on the linguistic information in the texts
in which they are embedded. An example is the phenomenon of anaphora.
Anaphora refers to the linguistic relationship between referring
expressions
41
With regard to its fate, Vygotsky argued that as speech functions
become increasingly differentiated, egocentric speech “goes underground,”
or is transformed into inner speech. It serves as “a transitional
form from external to internal speech” (193-La, p. 464). To test his
hypotheses about the function and fate of egocentric speech Vygotsky
(I93-la) conducted a series of em
42
Whorf - language shapes thought of speakers
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